Tag: Munch Spot

I’ll save you my lame reason of being too busy at uni to blog, though it has been truthfully the reason and I am very sorry about it.

Nevertheless, I come back with much excitement to share with you my latest ‘school project’. No, I’m not becoming a chef. If anything, weird eating habits have taken me further from the kitchen…but I digress.

6 weeks ago, I along with 4 other students started a course in Online Journalism at the University of Westminster, without the slightest idea about web building. And yet, here we are launching our very own website!

And, what else was to be the common thread between a Spaniard, a Japanese, an Indian, a Vietnamese and a Chinese ? Why, London, of course! and being the ‘hungry’, pocket-torn student journalists that we are, FOOD!

So we came up with the idea of embarking on journeys to explore London through food, affordably- everything from the latest happenings in the culinary scene, to quirky food concepts, and the gastronomic culture of the city that we’re all taking on as students for the first year.

My mind turns to the refreshing delights of my days in Saigon…and how I thirst for just a sip of that goodiness right now.

Now, you may have heard of or be like me, have many times over, in your life, turned into an utter fool for “Chè”, not the tea, but the dessert. It could be anything from well-cooked green beans soaked in sugar to a blend of syrup-drowned fruits, nuts and jelly,served either hot or iced. The topic of this much loved dessert would take countless days to cover, since it could be practically any number of combinations of sugar-related dishes in Vietnam.

Sam Bo Luong – this combination does not include all the available ingredientsThe Sam Bo Luong Cart on Nguyen Thai Binh Str, Dist1

In Saigon, however, amidst the culinary adventure on which I and my palate fully and ever so often engage and yet fail to fully report on, I discover a genre of ‘chè’ known as ‘sâm bổ lượng” – Pardon my Vietnamese, linguists out there, but my rough understanding after enjoying this once or twice, is that it’s a ginseng drink that is absolutely scrumptious and healthy, and it gives you a boost on metabolism.

No, it’s not “Redbull” in disguise. From my conversation with the vendor who happens to be of Chinese ancestry, this type of dessert is a Chinese treat brought to the southern metropolis by communities moving southward to settle. Beyond simply cooking different types of fruits and jelly, and letting it candy up and soak in sugar syrup in the case of many types of typical Vietnamese “Chè”, this ginseng refreshment uses ingredients that would be more known to Vietnamese people in a mixture of Chinese traditional medicine such as: ginseng, dried seaweed, ginko nuts pearl barley, dried dates, dried longans…etc (Below is a sample of some ingredients) .

This makes it all sound so healthy…and my so far-done research of this drink is way too scattered to affirm this…yet my palate and I will attest, the ginseng flavored syrupy broth, coupled with the subtle differences in texture and taste of the ingredients involved, makes this drink definitely a worthwhile delight to try out. I find that it doesn’t have the ‘heaviness’ or ‘overwhelming sugary’ feel of some other types of Chè that includes further extraction of the fruits and beans into the broth. In contrast, it’s light, only slightly sweet, savory in texture, and refreshing in taste. It’d become nothing short of a culinary enigma if I attempt to describe any more.

Some ingredients (*Courtesy of Food For Four)

But, if you ever head over to district 1 in HCMC, a block or two away from Ben Thanh Market, down to Nguyen Thai Binh street during late night….it’s completely deserted, with the exception of this cart. It’s a very eye-catching cart indeed…plastered with what I see as stained-glass paintings (I could be completely off)…

These carts, the owner, in his 50s and a 3rd generation Chinese expat, says are typical for vending desserts and other goodies back in the heyday of the “Cho Lon” – Chinese-populated era of Saigon. His cart dates back to the 1930s, I believe and his family has been in the business since he can barely remember. After the passing of his wife, my friend shares, he had been fully dedicated to perfecting the trade, all from the comforts of this cute little cart, amidst the bustling chaos that is Saigon life.

He’s a journalism story in the making and I have plans to learn more about this man and his cart, of which I’ll share, and yet I digress, as this post is about FOOD…Anyhoo, it’s roughly around 175 Nguyen Thai Binh I think, a cart with aluminum cylinders of brewed delights ready to be mixed in with a range of different ginseng and sugar syrup. I’ve only had the drink several times, not nearly quite enough, but what I can definitely notice is the clarity and lightness of the broth here compared to the place I tried in District 5 – Chinatown. How I would fly to Saigon just for a glass right now…!!!

PS: updates will be given to fill apparently huge gaps in the knowledge that I have about this delight. From what I know, Sam Bo Luong is but one…as this cart alone features many other types of ‘che” known through names that I fail to register in my head…ones that even include full eggs boiled in sugar (sounds weird yet enticing). For now, just take it from me that Sam Bo Luong is amazingly the best summer refreshment I’ve enjoyed so far, and you should go try it! Enjoy!

So we all might have heard of the typical stereotypes of the French eating their grimy frog legs and more frequently are escargots (snails), and the mention of those “slimey molluscs” on any dinner menu immediately triggers a ‘yuck’ or two from a good number of my American friends. But mind you, they’re part of the street food specialties in Vietnam.

Aside from a tiny bias here that it is perhaps one of my favorite pastime munchies that I’m literally almost always up for at any particular given time, snails here are diverse in the myriad of breeds living across Vietnam and they become much more than just, as infamously accused, “rubbery pieces of blandness” through the plenty of ways in which you can marinate/cook/grill/stir-fry/a la carte/’younameit’ them.

Anyhow, just when my palate thought it was quite, very much, satisfied with the ‘Quán Cay’ (Spicy Resto) alongside the Giang Vo lake _renowned as the snails foodie row here in Hanoi, I find myself completely stupefied at the abundance of scrumptious snail possibilities in Saigon. There are perks in having to go on business trips down to the southern metropolis every so often, you start to discover the greener, well another color completely of the culinary grass. The collection of southern snails are for a great part, very different from those you could find here in Hanoi. My newfound snail haven in HCMC is ‘Ốc Đào’.

Well tucked away in a typically-Vietnamese-winding alley of Nguyễn Trãi Street, the resto’s headquarters, all under 2 umbrellas, consist of baskets full of different types of shell-fish, 1 or 2 cooks stir-frying on-spot, and a host of finger-pointing employees as to where you should sit. Behind the umbrellas, are two small rooms but the main eating area is across the alley, into a tent-covered yard with around 30 to 40 small plastic tables, and those tiny street food chairs that anyone above 1.8 metres tall who sits on them will immediately find his knees kissing his nose.

The thing that sets Ốc Đào (not sure if Đào (peach) is the name of the owner) apart is the fact that it is an exclusively lunch-spot. This is very odd considering most Vietnamese people look to snails as a night treat. Nevertheless, as I had mentioned my ‘timeless’ love for these shell delights, this fact, for me and I’m guessing also for the amount of people flocking into the place over lunchtime, the fact didn’t matter. The matter at hands were the SNAILS! They are around 25 different types of shellfish on the menu (shrimps and crabs included)…some of the stuff I have never even heard of, everything ranging from tiny-looking snails ironically named ‘ốc ngựa’ (horse snails) to oddities like ‘sò lông’ (hairy clams) . There are some 13 different ways of cooking almost any particular snails, most scrumptious of which include, grilled with shallots and peanuts, stir-fried with tamarind, or deep-fried in butter and garlic. From 25,000 VND to 100,000 VND per full plates, depending on the luxuriousness of the snails, it’s definitely quite a budget yet sure-to-please street delight.

Ốc Mỡ Stirfried with Tamarind, Shallots and Fatty chips

In the middle of the seemingly commencing unbearable summer heat of Saigon, hiding below a tent, watching conical-hat covered employees hoisting tray-full of a multitude of shells on their shoulders, huddled to your knees amidst about 100 others,
sipping ice-cold sugarcane juice, twisting delectably marinated snails out of their shells, dipping them anxiously into crazily spicy fish sauce, and then easing those lovelies into your palate , one by one …. it’s an experience beyond any preconceptions you might have about eating snails! Enjoy photos taken on my second visit to the resto!

Had Moroccan food for the first time today. Now I’ve heard of this resto quite a while ago, I’m thinking it’s the only Moroccan munch spot in Hanoi but do correct me should my laziness to google any further completely fail me. The place used to be on Au Co street, which also on the account of another facet of my couch-potato arse, I have never mustered up the energy to motorbike to. Anyhoo, I was strolling along the winding road around West Lake earlier today, starting from the To Ngoc Van end and just as I was about to pass Dream House school, I saw Le Marrakech. It apparently has just moved to the spot, the paint still looks crisp. It’s a cozy 2-story building, plum-painted, with the occasional picture or two of men sitting on camels. I was excited, nevertheless, because after 7 hours at the office on my supposedly free Saturday, I was starving and ready to chow down anything that they put down in front of me. The menu is quite simple, offering a range of salads, soups, different types of couscous, tagines (stew) and kebab. I have had couscous before back in my days with my Nantes host family, of course it was the boxed-instant-couscous type but I’ve always really enjoyed it plain or simply with raisins. I was about to go for couscous with chicken, raisins, almond, honey and cinnamon , but the waitress warned me of how sweet the dish would be, and so I backed out and opted for the Royal something (the name escapes me) couscous dish with chicken, beef, assorted veggies and chickpeas. I haven’t had chickpeas since Blanchard Campus Center salad days back in senior year. I was a little hesitant about the tagines because the waitress described it as being a stew of really well-done meat, which I choose to avoid in most instance. So my second dish would end up being lamb kebab as I was a little curious to see how the Moroccan version would be different from the Greek version of lamb kebab on bread.

Royal Couscous Dish

I must say, apart from being ultra-hungry and devouring everything they brought to the table, I found that the food was genuinely really well-made the dishes. I have no prior tasting of any other types of Moroccan food so I can’t judge for sure whether it lives up to the standard of being authentic or not, but the dishes came out and they were just beautifully marinated. The 1st dish resembled a little volcano of beef, chicken, zucchini, white radish, carrots on a bed of couscous and chickpeas, amazing with the tomato broth sauce (also with bits of chickpeas) and voraciously-tongue-burning chili sauce. I’m not a big fan of well-cook meat and veggies, but together with the couscous and sauce, it’s definitely a mouth-watering duo. I could eat plainly the latter two, and I’d be set.

Lamb Kebab

The second dish is our kebab, with 3 kebabs of very well-marinated lamb chops. I’m not sure what herbs the cook had tossed in there, but the aroma gets to you the minute you walk into the resto. If you’re going to try this though, do chow down as soon as the plates come out. I was busy with the couscous so, my 2nd and 3rd pieces of lamb out were a bit rough around the edges…but the taste is like nothing I’ve ever tried. It might be thyme that they were using, or maybe perhaps some local spices, but you get a whiff of this and you’re just hooked. The kebab was served with chopped tomatoes and onions, topped off with what I believe is a type of hummus, parsley -tossed mayo and potato cubes and also Moroccan bread: the super crispy and a bit salty ‘khobz’.

By the time I had finished those two dishes, I was flustered with all the food and abandoned any pre-meal fantasies of trying out the abundant dessert menu they had. Definitely worth a trip back to discover and hopefully talk a little bit more to the manager, who seems like a very considerate guy and the prices are also very kind to the pockets with entrees ranging around 130 to 160,000 VND on average. Enjoy the snapshots, which are in the latest tribute to beginner lomo-ing. Love!